University of Amsterdam vs Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Our read

The University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam both teach across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, law and medicine in the same city, with similar non-EEA tuition ranges. UvA's institutional fee runs from about EUR 13,900 to 34,700 a year depending on faculty, and several of its popular bachelor's programmes use a selection procedure with an earlier deadline than the general one. VU's official 2026-2027 fee schedule runs from EUR 14,310 a year for most programmes up to EUR 35,640 for Medicine and EUR 34,700 for Dentistry, a slightly higher ceiling than UvA's. Both ask for IELTS 6.5 or TOEFL 92, an identical English floor. VU names its top fee bands explicitly by subject, Medicine and Dentistry, while UvA describes selection procedures affecting deadlines rather than naming which subjects cost the most. Neither publishes an acceptance rate or student count on this site. A student comparing the two on cost alone will find them close, within a few hundred euros at both ends of the range. Check each university's own page for which specific programmes carry a selection procedure and an earlier deadline.